Driving backwards on the shoulder of a four lane highway seems incredibly dangerous. Doing so with your foot planted firmly on the accelerator is even worse.

So what in the hell is this Pennsylvanian State Police Officer doing?

Reader Tom Lyons was riding with friends on the Pennsylvania Turnpike when something caught his eye. On the opposite side of the road was a police officer reversing in the shoulder and he had his lights on.

Tom said he was going about 75 MPH and the officer was nearly keeping up. "He had to have had it completely floored to be keeping up with traffic like that. Not sure what the top speed of a crown vic is in reverse but lets say he was doing 45, a very conservative number in this case," Tom tells us.

Tom says that the officer was probably speeding to get to the scene of an incident. "I looked like 3 or 4 miles down the road and there was one of their "municipal vehicle only" entrance gates so maybe he was trying to get to a call the fastest way he knew how," Tom says.

The problem is that he was going against traffic on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a road with a 65 MPH speedlimit that is often exceeded. One wrong move could result in a huge disaster. Thankfully, it seems everyone made it through unscathed.

We spoke to the Pennsylvania State Police to find out what was going on. They were unaware of the incident until we brought it to their attention and are looking into what happened. We expect to hear an official statement shortly.

UPDATE: The state police responded to our request for a statement. "From the quick snapshot that this video provides, there is very little information available. There could be many reasons that he is driving in reverse and quite often on our job there are many factors that come into play when responding to and handling emergency situations."